ruled by her moral nature. She is wholly æsthetic. Wilhelm and his roving friends are not objects of blame to her. They have followed their own bent, just as she has followed hers. Their doings were different from hers, owing to a difference in natural endowments and surroundings. Even the Abbé, Goethe's ideal of a clergyman, regards the past life of Wilhelm as a wholesome schooling, through which he was fated to pass. He has acted as he felt impelled to, and is no more blameworthy than the robins, who choose their mates, and pillage, and sing, in the farmer's orchard. He has done nothing to sorrow over with a godly sorrow. Joined to Natalia, whose stronger nature will control him, the verdict of the Abbé is, "You will never repent nor repeat your follies; and this is the happiest destiny which can be allotted to man." Goethe's theoretical views in his own life. From this notice of the works of Goethe I pass to the man himself. Did his pantheistic spirit bear the same fruit in his life as in his writings? To ask the question is to answer it, for his writings confessedly grew out of his life. He is Werther, he is Faust, he is Wilhelm Meister. No doubt it was his wish to be read purely as an artist. But we cannot distinguish between him and his works, as we do between Raphael and the Transfiguration or Last Supper. He casts a roseate light upon sinful deeds. He makes a mode of life which is shamefully wrong, look beautiful and inviting. He brings vice forward in such bewitching forms as to tempt the susceptible reader. Multitudes have accepted his works, not as art, but as the true philosophy of life. Such they were to himself. He held that his nature His faults not to be passed over. This is my reply was wholly divine; that each one of his impulses contained its own law; that no external rule could judge him. This faith he dared to practise; and we need, for our own admonition, to see some of the evils into which it led him. to those who say that the faults of Goethe should be covered up and forgotten. A writer in one of the English periodicals seems to me to speak justly, where he says, “A certain school of philosophers has even become indignant with anybody who searches into the moral character of the illustrious dead, to see whether or not they conformed strictly to the Ten Commandments. Surely, they hint, men of genius are not to be tested by the Ten Commandments. No heresy, however, can be so mischievous as that which teaches that there is, for different degrees of genius, a different moral code. Moral distinctions are a barrier erected by society between itself and danger, and are assiduously cultivated by educators and legislators to that end; and this barrier is nowhere needed more than in the case of great genius. Great intellectual or material strength, unaccompanied by moral sensibility, is an enemy. to mankind's happiness, quite as much as a wild beast is to the repose of an African village." " 1 In noticing the faults of Goethe, which his views of life helped to develop, that which was noble and pleasing in him should not be kept out of sight. He had kind impulses; he gave liberally of his Noble traits. means to the needy; he visited the wretched, and sought to make them forget their trouble; he aided 1 Saturday Review, 1868. poor students with his advice and money; he counselled young authors, gave them friendly criticism, recommended them to publishers. Such was the culture which he bestowed on the better side of his nature. Thus did the more amiable tendencies in him blossom out and ripen, under the law of spontaneous action. But his culture was not limited to this sphere. It was as broad as his whole humanity. It embraced other tendencies not so admirable. He had, for instance, a natural dread of hardship, and loved a quiet, peaceful life. This trait he cherished; and it was more sacred to him than popular rights, or the honor of his nation. He disliked to see the Germans rising in arms for their liberty, since the peaceful pursuit of culture would thereby be interrupted. He declared that he was unconscious of such a sentiment as love of country. In trying to be a patriot, he should be a hypocrite. All governments are only artificial devices; one was just as bad as another, to him who made nature his rule; and all he asked of any was, to leave. him free to act as he pleased. "When we have a place in the world where we can repose with our property," said he, "a field to nourish us, and a house to cover us, have we not there our fatherland? and have not thousands upon thousands got this? and do they not live happy in their limited sphere? Wherefore, then, this vain striving for a sentiment we neither have nor can have, a sentiment which only in certain nations, and in certain periods, is the result of many concurrent circumstances." These words were addressed to the people of Germany, the object being to dissuade them from making war on Napoleon, who was then moving to over Want of patriotism. throw their nation. The argument is, that nature had not destined them for political dominion. Let them, therefore, quietly enjoy what happened to be theirs, indifferent to the civil power over them, which was no part of nature. But where were human liberty to-day, we may well ask, if such a doctrine had swayed the hearts of all men? Patriotic Germans have not yet forgiven Goethe for accepting the flatteries of Napoleon, and favoring his claims, even while the French army was laying their country waste; and they have proved, by their achievements under William and Bismarck, securing to them an empire, and placing France at their mercy, that they were not vain in their aspirations, while the peace-loving poet was utterly mistaken. Mr. Lewes, apologizing for Goethe as he best can, says, "Without interest in political affairs, profoundly convinced that all salvation could come only through inward culture, and dreading disturbances mainly because they rendered such culture impossible, he was emphatically the child of peace,' and could at no period of his life be brought to sympathize with great struggles." 1 Every high sentiment in us agrees with the Christian poet, when he says, "Great truths are greatly won. Not found by chance, Hard buffeting the adverse wind and stream; "Wrung from the troubled spirit, in hard hours They spring like harvest from the well-ploughed field, ! Life and Works of Goethe, Vol. II., p. 168. But Goethe's method of culture calls forth from us no such response. The way which he prefers goes around the Gethsemanes and Calvarys of life. Though a prince of moral disorder, he loves repose,- that soft and dreamy peace which no outward trouble disturbs, while it allows free play to each fond desire. consistent with his theory. Shrinking, as he thus did, from all hardship and pain, Goethe could not carry the law of spontaneity out thoroughly in his life. His own peace of mind Goethe not obliged him to repress some of his impulses, and to regulate even those which he indulged. He often held his natural sympathy in check; says, "I carefully avoided seeing Schiller, Herder, the Duchess Amalia, in the coffin." The feeling of indignation which springs in every heart at the sight of wrongdoing he sought to overcome. "He who hates vices hates men," was one of his strange maxims. We are to love all things just as they are, however bad. Nothing should excite our hatred or pity, but only our joy. "He who rightly knows that all things follow from the necessity of the divine nature, and come to pass in conformity with the eternal laws of nature, will never meet with anything worthy of hatred or contempt; neither will he commiserate any one." Thus taught Spinoza, and Goethe aimed to live out the precept. He made new friends, forsook old friends, moved from place to place, both gave and broke the tenderest pledges, as his plans or present comfort seemed to require. "The most lovable heart," he said, "is that which loves most readily; and that which easily loves also easily forgets." At one time he was 1 1 Spinoza's Ethics, Part IV., Prop. I., Scholium. |